GuzziMoto

Good lord you are thick, Hack. How is it in a thread about chassis and suspension setup you go off on a pointless rant about engine performance? WTF? And to answer your question (I think there was a question in all that drival), you can BUY the parts to alter your late model V11 to mimic the early V11 steering geometry. It is not a secret and it is not voodoo. It works. Whether you want your V11 to steer like a early V11 or not is a personal preference thing. It is not a case of better or worse as much as it is different. I'm sure someone who thinks if Guzzis were meant to have better brakes then they have they would have come with them from the factory would not do such a thing, but for the rest of us it is a viable choice. If you choose to try offset bearings, and/or lengthen the swingarm in an attempt to achieve better weight distribution, reduce the amount of weight it has with lighter wheels or other parts, move the weight the bike does have around in an attempt to improve on the way it came stock, or even put a narrower tire on the rear then what it came with, then more power to you as long as it's what you want. The fact that Hack does not seem to think the V11 needs to be improved upon (or can be improved upon) is meaningless and unimportant. I am sure it is fair to say that most of the owners here have moddified their V11s in some way from stock and feel that that mod has made their V11 a more enjoyable bike to ride, even Hack has altered his V11 from stock. I'm not going to touch the whole motor mod thing as you've posted that same quote before and I said what I think then (I believe that thread was actually about motor mods).

It is not torquing the pinch bolts before torquing the axle nut that can cause too much pressure on the bearings, it is over torquing the axle nut can shorten the length of the bearing spacer causing side loads on the bearing when you tighten it down that should not be there. Wheel bearings are not designed for continuous high side loads like that. The reason the spacer tube is there between the bearings is to keep the inner races of the bearings a preset distance apart so that the torque used to secure the axle is not transfered to the bearing. As far as the axle setup you mention, it sounds familiar. I am thinking I have seen something like that before. The tool for tightening the axle was a tube with two short nubs that when you inserted the tube into the axle locked into the notches in the axle. You then stuck a screw driver or other such rod threw two opposing holes in the other end of the tube to hold the axle in place. Did you look through the tool kit that came with the bike. As crazy as it sounds there might be a tool in the kit that does just what you need. Or not.

You can achieve this with an offset bearing kit for less trouble then cutting and rewelding. And unless you have absolute faith in your welder I would go the off set bearing route. The steeper rake is, I believe, what gives the earlier V11s a shorter wheel base. There are several ways to get there from here.

Well, Raceboy. You walked right into that one didn't you. There is some truth to what Hack says, you can mess up a Guzzi with mis-guided mods. But the reality is you can mess up ANY bike with mis-guided mods. But the potential rewards for modding a Guzzi are greater then the potential rewards for modding most other bikes due to the higher un-realized potential in the bike. Most Jap bikes come from the factory already achieving most of what they can do and doing it quite well. Playing with swingarm length and chassis geometry is not something to take lightly. But that is not to say that it is not a path that offers improvement. The early V11's had steeper steering rake, narrower rear tires /rims, and quicker steering as a result. Later bikes are dumbed down a little because some people thought quicker steering on a Guzzi was a bad thing. I do not agree. There are various ways to alter the later bikes to work like the early bikes, everything from offset bearing kits to Computrack. The effect of the rear rim width should not be under estimated. The swing arm length is a harder thing to modify as well as predict the results of said modification. But in my opinion a longer swing arm with the pivot point lined up better with the U joint up front along with the rear axle moved back, couples with moving the front wheel back closer to the engine would be the way I would go if I had the time and money to throw at it. But that is not likely to happen any time soon. As far as the basic design of the Guzzi rear suspension and chassis, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it and there is little advantage in my opinion to redesigning it. The same design concepts are used on other modern bikes to great effect, It is not the outdated stone axe some would have you believe. It is true that the basic design concepts Guzzi has employed for the V11 chassis are quite old, It is probably the best handling street legal Guzzi ever to come out of the factory. There is room for improvement, but as with any such project if you don't know where you're going you'll probably end up somewhere else. Somewhere you may not want to be. Best of luck to ya'. Don't let the nay sayers beat ya down and keep us posted on what you do and how it works. If Dr John listened to people like Hack we would not have a V11 in the first place. Edit; the first Road Warrior movie

Dan, I can respect the approach you seem to have taken with this. And while I don't agree with your theory on temperature spikes, I have no evidence you are wrong. I think you are approaching this in a reasonably sound manor, and while I would prefer to see actual testing complete with temp readings to support your theory, atleast you are thinking it through (unlike some). I have been staying out of your thread on this because I don't agree with the idea of fudging the sensor readings to trick the ECU into doing what you want. But I wish you luck in you experiments and hope you keep at it in a sane, rational manor.

Well, thanks for educating me. But I gotta say, how the hell do you guys keep it straight then? Over here a single woman will often wear something that looks like a wedding ring but on the wrong hand. There, I don't see how you can know.

I cannot for the life of me see her left hand to see this alleged "wedding ring". I only see her right hand. Am I missing something?

Thanks, I needed that.

Now get to work building that custom exhaust. Pictures when it's done.

There are threads on this site that will teach you how to do just about anything your Guzzi will need done. Take your time and read thru the threads on adjusting the TPS and syncing the throttle bodies. Also, when you say "I checked the valve clearens yesterday and it seems ok", what were the clearances?

It cost me $855 last year. I got it thru Penske in Reading, Pa. Michael Himmelsbach was the Guy I talked to about it. He is a good guy. I knew him (not well) thru racing. He is a straight up guy. He actually got me my shock in less time then he quoted (time was important as we were going to Indy for the MotoGP race). I sent him a link to a thread on this site with the measurements of the stock shock to make sure they knew what size it should be. They should be able to make one for you without that but it wouldn't hurt to do the same. The shock is fully adjustable except it does not have the remote pre-load adjuster. Like the Ohlins it is fully rebuildable and tuneable. They will make the shock for your weight and riding preference. It is not the only good choice, but it was the best choice for me. Here is the link I sent him. It is worth a read if you have not read it already. http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...88&hl=sachs

Does it have to be Ohlins? I love Ohlins but they are no longer interested in making shocks for a V11 so anything you get will be a shock made from parts for something else. I looked at Ohlins and bought a Penske. No regrets.

Whooaa. Don't be so quick to go re-engineering things when there is something fundamentally wrong with the state of tune of your bike. Fix the back firing issue before you go redesigning things like the engine temp sensor or the exhaust system. There is no reason other then something mis-adjusted (valves could be too tight), leaking (air leak), or otherwise. Deal with that before you go changing things like that. If the bike doesn't run right to start with and you do something that extreme, and it doesn't run right after you are done, you won't know if what you did was an improvement or not. The bike should be able to run fine stock. You need a solid baseline before you go re-engineering the bike. But once it is running right, by all means build your own exhaust. What the hell, if it doesn't work well you can put the stock one back on (and try again knowing more then you knew to start).

I guess for Hack, that's about as "civilized" as it gets.

The 04's and other bikes with a front cross over usually also have a cross over further back. As I don't have a later model bike I don't know the details of yours. But exhaust theory is the same on all. The crossover at the front of the motor is mainly there to reduce noise. It will change the power characteristics but not entirely for the better. You would be better served to eliminate it and have a proper cross over at the normal spot, somewhere just in front of the rear wheel. A stock Guzzi cross over (at the proper spot, just in front of ther rear wheel) is not ideal but it is better then nothing. A Stuchi cross over is better yet, but no one that I have seen makes one that is perfect. Part of the problem is the lack of space down there. Another is the angle of the head pipes as they come around the block. You can buy a proper two into one collector or cross over but making it fit is another story alltogether. There are lots of causes for bad mileage, ranging from bad temp signals to throttle body sync, valve lash, or the crappy stock fuel map. The problem is figuring out which problem (or problems) is yours.

I have had a injector that would stick open. It caused the bike to run poorly, not the same way as you describe but that would be due to the bike having an O2 sensor (on the cylinder that the sticking injector was on no less). I would swap the injectors to see if the issue moves with the injector (meaning you have a bad injector) or if it stays (meaning you have a wiring fault or ECU issu telling that injector to stay open). If the injector is bad I would replace it. Usually if an injector is that bad it is not something that anything in a can will fix. I do not like being stuck on the side of the road.

My apologies, I should have looked at mine first. Fully closed is fully screwed in, which in this case is a plus (+) sign. Don't know where I got the minus sign in my head from. Sorry.

Yes, fully closed is fully screwed in often represented by a minus sign(-) since as you close the oriface it will have more dampening. The side panels have little to do with adjusting the shock preload. Removing them gains you little as they mainly cover the sides of the airbox. You will likely want to at the very least undo the rear mount for the tank and pivot it up. I prefer to remove it entirely. You do not need a "special tool" to adjust the shock but atleast having a generic shock preload adjuster is a good idea. They sell them at any good M/C shop. It is not that easy to adjust the preload due to the lack of access with the airbox in the way. A proper tool will make the job a little easier. For rear sag settings I like about one inch of sag from fully unloaded to fully loaded with rider in full gear and seated on the bike as if riding (static sag). Another measurement is how far the bike sags from fully unloaded to sitting there with only the weight of the bike compressing the suspension (free sag). This number should be small but definetely there, i.e. the bike should not be setup to have zero sag (or lots of sag) with no one one board in order to have the correct sag with rider on board. That would indicate that the spring is to soft (or too hard). 5mm is a good number. A good target to shoot for with static sag is 20-25% of travel. This comes out to about 1-1 1/4" of sag on a bike with 5" of travel. I prefer a slightly stiffer setup so I lean towards the 1" side but you may prefer it "softer". To point out something here, it is often refered to as softer when you lessen the preload and stiffer when you tighten the preload but that is not really correct. Changing the spring can make it softer or harder. Changing the preload changes the ride height and thus the available travel but it does not make the spring "harder" or "softer" .Unless you go beyond the points recommended by most suspension tuners (i.e. no free sag or massive amounts of free sag all you are doing is adjusting the ride height. Edit: Here is a link to an explanation on setting sag. http://www.sportrider.com/tech/146_0308_geek/index.html There are many others if you google.

Guzzi made cams and tappets. They failed. They then designed NEW cams and tappets out of higher spec materials by their own admission and hopefully a better shape. Now hopefully they don't fail. If it was just a parts quality issue then there would not be new parts with new part numbers as there now are. If that is not a description of an engineering failure then nothing is.

The relationship to engine temp could be that as the engine gets hotter the oil pressure goes down. The oil pressure may only hit the point where the sensor falsely turns on the oil light when the motor is really hot. the rest of the time the pressure is above that point. The sensor may be working but not correctly. I would replace it. I like the gauge idea.

I believe you Greg. You are an excellent source of information to me, and while we may differ on matters of opinion I see this as a statement of fact from you, not opinion.

WTF?

Exhausts are very much a personal preference thing beyond the aspect of performance. Pure race pipes aside it really comes down to taste, whether its finish (polished cans or matte black), sound (hard and raw or low and rumbly), or style (oval, round, or under bike Quat-D). Before you can figure out which are the right pipes for you, you must figure out what you want from them. The following is my opinions based on my experiences. If you want a real muscle car sound from a V11 the only pipe I've heard that comes close is the Quat-D. None of the 2 into 2 slip-ons are capable of sounding that way due to the design. A few get close, but none are there. A proper two into one would really do the trick but finding one is another matter. Replacing the stock cross-over is the next best thing. It is suprising how much difference this can make on the sound of the bike. The Ferracci version has had a lot of issues with cracking and their customer support for people with cracked Ferracci cross-overs has been pathetic. Stuchi would be my choice. StainTunes are nicely made but I hate pipes that require that much effort (cleaning). Bead blasting them would help but then you are wasting a good part of what you paid extra for. The Guzzi performace mufflers (latter ones are Ti but there are atleast one set out there that are not) are my favorite slip-on. The set I have (not Ti) used stainless steel wool as a first layer around the baffle under the normal packing. This prevented the packing from blowing out but it does result in a slightly harder edge sound. In todays day and age you can find just about any combination of bike and mufflers posted on the internet to listen to. In the old days you payed your money and took your chances.

The V11's have no such issues. The newer bikes, Griso's and Breva's, have a code that you need to enter in certain situations and other electronic settings that sometimes need to be re-set. And typically on any modern emissions certified O2 equipped vehicle if you disconnect the battery that sets the ECU back to factory baseline settings (i.e. clears any adjustments to the fuel curve that may have been made based on info from the O2 sensor. Sorry but I gotta ask, did you do the throttle stuff while the fuse was out? How did the ECU even know what you were doing if it had no power. Just trying to understand.

I run a hotter bulb (SilverStar) but this is only some help. You end up with more light but it still is not spread out well. A better reflector would be a better solution, but I am happy enough with the new bulb.